Provinciale Statenverkiezingen 2023

How do political campaigns target voters?

Methodology

In collaboration with Who Targets Me, we monitored over 1000 Dutch political advertisers during the 2023 Provinciale Statenverkiezingen (Provincial elections) to better understand how campaigns use different targeting methods made available by Meta. To do this, we used data from the Meta Ad Library, using the new ‘Audience’ data which gives some detail on how pages target their ads.

To better understand the regional election, we kept only advertisers who:

  1. Advertised in the last 7 days (Mar 8th - Mar 14th 2023)
  2. Advertised in the last 30 days (Feb 13th - Mar 14th 2023)

Note: Meta only provides 7, 30 and 90 days windows for the targeting data in their Ad Library. Meta’s data also lags by a few days. We will update this report as soon as new data is available.

Topline Statistics

Meta

Daily Spend

Feb 13th - Mar 14th 2023 (Last 30 days)

In total, political parties spend €327,254 and ran 5440 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

KOK

110


1. Uudenmaan Kokoomus Ry (€18,975)
2. Kokoomus (€10,788)
3. Susanne Päivärinta (€4,594)

1,288

€89,783

SDP

94


1. Sosialidemokraatit SDP (€23,524)
2. Lauri Muranen (€1,835)
3. Juha Beurling-Pomoell (€1,664)

748

€49,460

VIH

100


1. Reetta Vanhanen (€5,664)
2. Saara Hyrkkö (€3,050)
3. Fatim Diarra (€2,157)

971

€43,688

KES

82


1. Keskusta (€21,643)
2. Pohjois-Pohjanmaan Keskusta (€2,115)
3. Atte Savelainen (€1,564)

422

€39,120

VAS

91


1. Vasemmistoliitto (€10,176)
2. Helsingin Vasemmisto (€3,473)
3. Mai Kivelä (€3,369)

617

€32,664

MUUT

40


1. Teollisuusliitto (€10,446)
2. Kela - Fpa (€1,950)
3. Liberaalipuolue (€1,748)

299

€24,072

PER

63


1. Tuomas Sorsa PS (€4,058)
2. Kaisa Garedew PS (€2,258)
3. Perussuomalaiset (€1,993)

502

€21,501

RKP

41


1. Svenska folkpartiet i Finland (€2,878)
2. SFP i Nyland - RKP Uusimaa (€2,220)
3. Anders Adlercreutz (€1,485)

400

€19,705

KD

35


1. Duunitori (€1,165)
2. Kristillisdemokraatit (€1,030)
3. Kauko Turunen poliitikko (€636)

188

€7,085

KOR

1


1. Petri Roininen (€176)

5

€176

Mar 8th - Mar 14th 2023 (Last 7 days)

In total, political parties spend €156,921 and ran 3137 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

KOK

103


1. Uudenmaan Kokoomus Ry (€9,236)
2. Kokoomus (€6,768)
3. Susanne Päivärinta (€3,634)

797

€46,547

VAS

78


1. Vasemmistoliitto (€8,850)
2. Mai Kivelä (€2,910)
3. Helsingin Vasemmisto (€2,383)

360

€23,176

VIH

88


1. Reetta Vanhanen (€1,744)
2. Mari Holopainen (€1,278)
3. Saara Hyrkkö (€1,097)

548

€21,479

SDP

81


1. Sosialidemokraatit SDP (€7,622)
2. Hämeen Sosialidemokraatit (€436)
3. SDP Tampere (€432)

395

€20,113

KES

62


1. Keskusta (€4,905)
2. Atte Savelainen (€703)
3. Timo Väänänen (€570)

219

€13,683

PER

53


1. Kaisa Garedew PS (€2,022)
2. Tuomas Sorsa PS (€1,505)
3. Perussuomalaiset (€786)

272

€11,337

RKP

35


1. Svenska folkpartiet i Finland (€1,191)
2. SFP Samkretsen - RKP:n Yhteispiiri (€946)
3. SFP i Nyland - RKP Uusimaa (€862)

275

€8,996

MUUT

37


1. Teollisuusliitto (€2,495)
2. Kela - Fpa (€604)
3. Mirita Saxberg (€444)

177

€8,002

KD

28


1. Kristillisdemokraatit (€391)
2. Duunitori (€248)
3. Riitta Kuismanen (€170)

89

€3,412

KOR

1


1. Petri Roininen (€176)

5

€176

Google

For Google platforms, data accessed via the Google Transparency Report provides exact spending on how much money was spent by parties in last 30 and 7 days.

Daily Spend

Feb 14th to Mar 15th 2023 (Last 30 days)

In total, political parties spend €250 and ran 21 ad copies on Google in this timeframe.

Number of Ads Top Spenders Total Spend

KOK

12


1. Kansallinen Kokoomus r.p. (€50)
2. Pohjanmaan Kokoomus ry (€50)
3. Hämeen Kokoomus ry (€0)

€100

KES

3


1. Suomen Keskusta r.p. (€50)

€50

RKP

2


1. Svenska folkpartiet i Finland r.p., Suomen ruotsalainen kansanpuolue r.p. (€50)

€50

SDP

4


1. Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue - Finlands Socialdemokratiska Parti r.p. (€50)
2. Hämeen Sosialidemokraatit ry (€0)
3. Helsingin Sosialidemokraatit - Helsingfors Socialdemokrater ry (€0)

€50

VIH

0


1. Keski-Suomen Vihreät (€0)
2. Savo-Karjalan Vihreät ry (€0)
3. Uudenmaan Vihreät ry (€0)

€0

Mar 9th to 15th 2023 (Last 7 days)

In total, political parties spend €250 and ran 15 ad copies on Google in this timeframe.

Number of Ads Top Spenders Total Spend

KOK

10


1. Kansallinen Kokoomus r.p. (€50)
2. Pohjanmaan Kokoomus ry (€50)
3. Kainuun Kokoomus r.y. (€0)

€100

KES

1


1. Suomen Keskusta r.p. (€50)

€50

RKP

2


1. Svenska folkpartiet i Finland r.p., Suomen ruotsalainen kansanpuolue r.p. (€50)

€50

SDP

2


1. Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue - Finlands Socialdemokratiska Parti r.p. (€50)
2. Helsingin Sosialidemokraatit - Helsingfors Socialdemokrater ry (€0)

€50

Combined Stats

Daily Spend

Total Spend

Digital Ads as Percentage of Total Budget

Meta vs. Google

Spending per Targeting Criteria

How much did campaigns spend on different targeting methods?

Feb 13th - Mar 14th 2023 (Last 30 days)

Overall

By Party

Mar 8th - Mar 14th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Overall

By Party

Top Targeted Audiences

Here, we show the top targeted audiences for each party (ranked by amount of Euro spend). Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”.

Feb 13th - Mar 14th 2023 (Last 30 days)

Mar 8th - Mar 14th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Top Contested Audiences

Here, we show the top most contested audiences, i.e. where all parties have spent considerable amounts of money competing to reach voters with the same interests. Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”. In each row on the right hand side, you can see how much in total was spend on that specific target audience.

Feb 13th - Mar 14th 2023 (Last 30 days)

Mar 8th - Mar 14th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Age Targeting

Feb 13th - Mar 14th 2023 (Last 30 days)

Mar 8th - Mar 14th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Gender Targeting

Feb 13th - Mar 14th 2023 (Last 30 days)

Mar 8th - Mar 14th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Education Targeting

Feb 13th - Mar 14th 2023 (Last 30 days)

Mar 8th - Mar 14th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Job Targeting

Feb 13th - Mar 14th 2023 (Last 30 days)

Mar 8th - Mar 14th 2023 (Last 7 days)